starting my leica year

[porktaco]

ever since mike johnston's leica year article, i've been very curious about doing one. perhaps i'm attracted to the secret knowledge which he says will come from a year with a fixed kit, perhaps i just have a (till now unfulfilled) leica fetish.

so, i made a first step last year, and bought a canon p to see whether i liked (and was willing to pay for) film, to shoot without a meter and learn how much light is falling on something. turns out i like film. so, i'm still working on my skills, but i'm confident enough to take on an artistic project for a year.

(my dad, i digress, shot with minox all throughout my childhood, only occasionally with a meter. scale focus, guesstimate about exposure. he took really great photos with it, not least because it was always in his pocket but also because it was all he shot with and did many things by feel).

a couple of weeks ago, i took the nestea plunge and bought an m6 body from a forum member. i had been thinking about an m4 or m5, but all of a sudden there i was looking at an m6 ad and saying gee that looks like what i think i can use best this year. it's a lovely device, as i'm sure many of you know.

i'll be shooting with a 50 cron and ilford delta 400. i'll try to do as little post-processing as i can (and to be consistent about what i do do). i got my first rolls of film back today, and i like the results. see below (though these are with a 40 cron... i love that lens but this was kind of a test drive to choose 40 vs 50).

last saturday, when i took these, was the kind of day that makes a person actually like being outdoors in texas. it's spring break here, my redbud is in bloom (as are all the other flowering trees, much to the inflammation of my sinuses) and the temperature was between 75 and 80 all afternoon. i took a walk through zilker park here in austin and ended up watching kids jump off of bridges and trees into the little piece of water where barton springs flows out into town lake. i never did any bridge jumping as a kid, but these guys were clearly very well practiced. fwiw, i don't think the water is terribly deep...

here, a kid is about to hit the water

there was quite a crowd gathered in canoes and on the bridges.

this kid climbed up a tree i saw no way to get up and repeatedly rope-swinged his way out into the creek.

then it was back to the bridge.

and then, at the end of the day, the reason for all the jumping

i make this post for a number of reasons. first, because it's a tremendous excuse to post a bunch of pictures. second, because now i actually have to follow through with it. now, there are going to be specific projects for which digital will be better suited than film, so i give myself a couple of outs. you will see some digital and color from me this year. just not a whole lot. third, because the folks here have been a huge source of support and inspiration. you guys are a great audience and you take really, really interesting pictures. as i try to refine what i like and what i don't, i have a lot of provocative images to work with here.

thanks.

pt

 

[helen.HH]

What a Wonderful set !!
I Adore photos 2 & 3 ....those for me Capture a certain Atmospheric Charm


Congrat on the M6 ... Lovely cam
I have recently been Smitten with the 40 cron
I generally shoot 50's ninety percent of the Time
but a 40 felt good as well

 

[porktaco]

thank you helen. the 40 is very hard not to pick

 

[Darshan]

Excellently written and nice images to go along with.
Love the "title" of the last image..🙂
Congrats on your M6 and will be looking forward to more photos in this thread.

 

[paulfish4570]

way to go, pork! nice package of shots of, "hey y'all, watch this!"
i think you will do just fine with your project ...

 

[porktaco]

thank you both. hey y'all watch this was in full effect on saturday, and, as always, showing off is much better with women (girls, in this case) around.

 

[gb hill]

I really liked #1 & 2. Have fun with the project & enjoy the M6. I always wanted a MP but I need to master the Bessa R. Perhaps I should undertake such a project.

 

[bennett2136]

Really great shots! Good luck with the project.

 

[porktaco]

thanks.

george, if you wait to master something, you might be waiting a long time. how about until you master the basics and have some level of fluidity with advanced topics. like, don't wait till you're a 5th dan black belt (because that's a life decision), maybe start looking then you're a purple or brown belt.

and dan i hadn't thought of year-blogging in a thread here, but that's sort of a good idea. i was going to keep a journal, but perhaps this is better. or perhaps both are better.

 

[porktaco]

i think i'm going to keep my year's journal here. it's more interesting than writing in a little book, and i get to put photos in.

i got my next set of film back. it was very offputting doing only film. having to stop in the middle of a roll. take whatever i had and sending it off for developing. waiting a week for it to come back. but, as with everything about the film, i'm learning to enjoy the limitations.

the m6 is a delight to carry, especially with a collapsed 50 cron, which is what i'm going to use for my designated leica-year lens. i was worried about missing grab shots, but since a big part of the year's project for me is pre-visualization, and since it doesn't take THAT long to snap a collapsible into position, and since i can if i so desire carry a collapsible lens in uncollapsed position, i think i'll be just fine.

i love the mechanicality of the leica. click. whirr. snickt. years ago, i worked at a groovy hippie summer camp with a guy who was an ex marine. i remember him saying, "there's something really sexy about the sound of a good camera shutter click. sort of like... an m16." and then his eyes would kind of mist over. uh... right. that said, i am enjoying the physicality of putting the film in and winding after a shot. and, of course, being much more measured in shot selection than i ever was with digital.

i had gotten very used to the metering in my RD-1 and could guess about under and over exposure (plus, i could chimp and check). the m6 is both harder to get right, but more tolerant of mistakes. wait... that didn't sound right, but i think it actually is.

sometimes, of course, the exposure comes out just right. i'm using north coast photo for my develop-and-scan. the enhanced scans (large size) are expensive, but they're gorgeous. i find that i have relatively little to do. some cropping and some exposure adjustment, but so much less than with digital.

i'm particularly taken with how well 400 film works in low light/no light situations. and, as unobtrusive as the rd-1 is, the m6 is even sneakitier.

another thing i'm finding is how much i like the full-frame 50 view. back in high school when i started taking photos, i had a minolta srt 101 with a fast 50. i liked the view very much then, and it feels very right on the leica today.

i took the leica to a local acro-yoga thing in a park. i was exquisitely conscious of every frame, particularly the ones where i was shooting into the light or shooting in less-than-great light.

i love the grain and feel of the results, even if i don't always get the framing right

and, maybe because of shutter sound, maybe because of camera size, maybe because i radiated ninja waves when holding a leica, i got close to my subjects and they didn't pay too much attention to the man with the camera.

my recent reintroduction to photography has gone from panasonic g1 to epson rd-1 to leica. i moved on to the rd-1 for image quality and RF experience, and when i look back at my G1 images, i see a lot of small-sensor smoothiness. now that i'm doing film again, i see digital smoothiness in the rd-1 photos too.

recently, i went to the fights here in south austin. i took the rd-1 with me because i knew i was going to take a lot of pictures and because i knew light would be tricky.

i started out with a leica elmar-c 90. i adore this lens, and it's great for this kind of work. i was pretty sure that i'd be using it all through the evening, but i brought a couple of other lenses along just in case.

i took some fight photos but i found it hard to guess when the decisive moment was going to happen. and i screwed up a lot of pics because of the in-ring lighting.

so, i popped on the 40 summicron and started taking pictures of other things

i had always thought i would want a long lens and the crop factor of m4/3 and APS, but spending time with the leica has made me much more comfortable with 50 as a focal length. oddly, i hadn't ever been real crazy about using a 35 on the rd-1, but using the 40 (which is actually a better match for the 35 framelines on the rd-1 than is a 35) felt very natural. my point of view has changed a little bit already.

i'm finding that my previsualization is improving. the discipline of film is great for this. going back to the rd-1 for the fights was cool because i could shoot and shoot and shoot and not worry about racking up a big film bill, but i did have a much louder "think before you shoot" little voice in my head. a couple of shots were things i looked at a bunch of times before actually doing.

for the crowd one, i took three or four over the course of a half hour, but i thought a lot before each one, and when i took this one i had a pretty good idea about the end image. the real decider was the woman in the upper left with her head on her friend's shoulder.

the rd-1's colors are intoxicating, but the mike johnston leica year "pay attention to light and not to color" dictum is wonderful for me. i am trying to do exactly that.

 

[paulfish4570]

a fine report, pt. go get 'em ...

 

[Haigh]

Terrific-thanks.

 

[porktaco]

thanks fellas

 

[efirmage]

Great job! Keep 'em coming.

 

[leica M2 fan]

pt, look forward to your input and enjoy looking at your results so far and your work is intriguing! You'll do well.

 

[Doug]

Thanks for sharing your project; looks like you're having fun already, with surely more fun and self-development to come. 🙂

 

[porktaco]

i got a bunch of film back this week. i need to confess that i went and bought another M body - an m5 - because i liked the m6 so much. i've been using it and while it's not as butter smooth as the m6, i love the vertical carry. it goes very easily over the shoulder, thereby solving the ugly camera purse problem. i had relegated the rigid cron to this body (believing that the m6 would have the collapsible one). after this set of pictures back, i think i'm going to go m5/rigid. it's sharper than my collapsible and it's creamier OOF. hm.

i'm having to monkey around with exposure a little. one thing i will say for the m6/collapsible is that i had a pretty good sense of exposure. i'm still getting used to the m5's finder but i really like the match needle meter.

we had a very busy family weekend, and i've posted a few photos in the gallery. i'm doing a longer run here for a few reasons. 180k is not a great limit for photo quality (though i'm sure it is for RFF operating costs, which are important for any online forum), and i'd like the bigger better shots to be visible. also, the thumbnailing gallery gets people (myself included) to skip over a lot of stuff. one reason i like the picks of the week is that i see a lot of things i missed in the gallery. and, i'd like to tell a little story.

as to the busy weekend... berries, dinner and then a hike. this is my second hike with my daughter into her treacherous woods (it's near their school). this time, my son came along. last time it was deliciously cool in the woods. now, hotter.

the girl took us on her own special path. the boy was quite skeptical that she knew where she was going, but remained quiet - for a while. we had had to promise him that this wouldn't be a long hike...

after about 20 minutes, we encountered a series of concrete and steel wreckages in the woods. the girl said that this is where the demolition rubble from the school's renovation went. it seems like a hell of a long way, especially since we were following a small, windy, overgrown footpath. i have no idea how this stuff got there.

sometimes, for example, we scrambled up sandy enbankments, clutching quite literally at straws (ok at grasses...)

it was about at this time when the boy started asking ARE WE THERE YET and DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING like every two minutes. the girl, of course, absolutely knew.

there was cottonwood fluff in the air

it's just over here dad

just through here

OH HERE IT IS. the creek. sadly, it doesn't move fast enough for splashing in. plus, it's just downstream from the new sewage treatment plant.

and now is when the trouble began. the girl wanted to go home on the scenic route. the boy was hot and tired and wanted to go directly home. unfortunately, only one person knew which way anything was. and she went off on her own. that's her head, the black thing in the middle of the frame.

much GET THE HELL BACK HERE discussion ensued. the boy was having none of the "we'll just go up the creek and come out at the fence" ****. he was really pissed off, and just sat down.

i think it took about fifteen minutes of negotiation to get the girl turned back home.

once turned home, the boy's spirits brightened. he just wanted some influence over the situation.

 

[porktaco]

and so we stopped at the climbing tree.

then, a quick stop in the big concrete craterey thing. the girl says it was part of the old sewage treatment plant.

the girl found some goddamned stick that she said is edible. i tried a bite, and i lived to tell.

the boy was well ahead of us

for a minute

then we spent some time dropping rocks down that concrete-and-steel thing

then out

and home again home again jiggety jig

 

[ChrisN]

Wonderful set - thanks for sharing these! And great to see the kids (and especially the girl) exploring and discovering around them.

 

[porktaco]

thanks. she loves those woods